In the Crosshairs- post Watershed
by abbyfillion22
Summary: 3XK returns to get his revenge on Castle.
1. Chapter 1

"Katherine Houghton Beckett… will you marry me?"

She sits there, stunned into silence.

He's kneeling in the wood mulch of the playground, the ring in his hands. His eyes are wet and he looks unhappy as he's saying it; almost as if he already knows the answer.

Suddenly, there's a loud bang and something hits the metal pole to her left.

He's up in an instant, tackling her to the ground and shielding her body with his own from the hailing bullets. Wood chips fly around them and she reaches to draw her gun.

Pandemonium breaks as people scramble to find their kids. Everyone is screaming and running like spooked horses.

Rick's lying on top of her, his full weight preventing her from moving at all. She lies completely still; the shooter no doubt assuming that she's dead.

_What the hell just happened? _She wonders. Everything around her is moving in a slow motion blur and she's confused by all of it.

"Oh my God!" a woman yells nearby. "Call 911!"

_Who's hurt?_ She turns her head sideways to see. "Castle," she says. "It's okay, it's over."

He groans and rolls off of her.

That's when she sees the bullet wound.

_No! _She thinks as a dark red spot spreads slowly across his shirt. She pulls his jacket away to examine it. The bullet is lodged in his left side, an inch below his heart.

"Kate," he whispers, gasping for air.

She's crying now, trying to stop the heavy flow of blood with her hand. "Don't you dare leave me, Castle," she says.

His face is pale and his eyes are out of focus, staring into space. "I love you, Kate," he mutters as he loses consciousness.

"Castle," she says in a scolding tone. She puts her ear to his chest to check for a beat. His heartbeat is so familiar to her now from all the hours she's spent with her head resting over it as they lie in bed together. It was always a comfort to hear the steady thumps inside his warm body. But now, she hears nothing. "Castle!" she screams, shaking him by the shoulders. "Don't leave me, Castle."

She counts silently as she pumps his chest, a desperate attempt to keep his heart going. She knows that her actions are in vain.

Someone puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.

She hadn't even heard the ambulance sirens before now.

She sobs uncontrollably as the EMTs lift him onto the gurney. She never lets go of his hand the entire time. "Come back to me, Castle," she says. "You need to come back for me."

She finally has to be dragged away from him by a police officer.

Her heart shatters into a million pieces as they close the ambulance doors and she sees a final glimpse of his lifeless body.

The officer forces her to sit. "He's going to be okay, sweetie, it didn't hit anything vital." she says, putting an arm around her.

Then, she remembers the shooter. He's still out there! She stands abruptly and takes off running in the direction of the sniper. It had to be long range; the park was too crowded to shoot from close up.

"Wait!" shouts the officer.

She mentally calculated the trajectory of the shots as she sprinted across the street.

She ignored the honks of annoyed drivers as she weaved in front of them.

The bullets landed at approximately 45-50° from a building across the street. From the swings to the skyscraper is about 400 meters away judging by her strides. She made a diagram in her head like her ninth grade geometry teacher taught her.

x

45°

400m

It was really a simple math problem factoring in tangents and using basic trig, she could easily calculate the exact floor location of the sniper.

The numbers flew threw her head as she gained access to the building.

Tan(45)= x/400, each floor is ten feet.

Since the angle of the bullet was 45°, that would make it a right 45, 45, 90 triangle. Meaning that side A and B are equal. The sniper shot from 400 meters up, on… the 40th floor!

She punches the elevator button for the fortieth floor and the doors slide shut.

She taps her foot impatiently waiting as the lift crept upwards. Jazzy music plays in the background. The numbers above the door on a tiny screen counted the floors; 38…39…40.

There is a ding and she hurries out. She looks out of the hallway window where she can see the park below. She decides that the sniper would have shot from a room to her right, where the swings are in the direct line of sight. She moves quickly down the hall, treading lightly before coming to a stop at an open doorway.

She stops and presses her back against the wall, listening intently. She knows she is grasping at straws at this point; if the sniper was smart, he would have already packed up his gear and left his nest.

She peeked around the corner and quietly pushed the door open, her gun up and ready.

Beckett was surprised to see the culprit still in his nest, peering through the scope of his gun. He had his back to her, but she knew immediately who it was.

3XK turned and smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

"I've been waiting for you," says the triple killer, Jerry Tyson.

Kate points the gun at him and takes a tentative step towards him. "I thought I killed you," she said. Just a few months ago, she had watched Rick shoot the man standing in front of her. His body had fallen off the bridge and into the Hudson River, never to be found.

"Thank God for bulletproof vests," he says slyly, moving his hands from the sniper.

"How did you survive the fall?" she asks, analyzing every one of his moves in case he reaches for a gun.

Tyson smirks. "Pure luck. I feed off of the thrill of not knowing." He checks his watch. "It took you long enough to find me."

"You killed him," she says quietly, moving further into the room.

Tyson shakes his head, clucking his head. "Maybe, but that wasn't my goal."

She lowers the gun slightly. "Oh, so you _didn't _mean to shoot at us?" She gestures to the sniper in the window.

"Dying isn't the worst thing that can happen," says Tyson. "Do you know how painful a stomach wound is?"

_Extremely, _she knows.

"No, he'll survive," Tyson continues. "He's going to live… but without you. His life will be a living hell. And once you're dead, I'll get rid of his daughter and mother. He'll have no one left who loves him… and then living for him will be worse than death."

"You're insane," says Kate.

His glare breaks into a wide smile. "They don't call me the triple killer for nothing. Three must die today."

He draws a gun from inside his jacket and shoots.

She ducks and rolls forward, coming up on one knee. She shoots in rapid fire as he dives for cover.

Then, the entire room is filled with smoke, making it impossible to see. Tyson had set off a smoke bomb.

She spins in place, trying to see where he is.

A hand reaches out of the smoke and grabs her from behind. A foot kicks her in the gut and she hits the ground, her gun sliding away from her.

The smoke clears slightly and she sees him standing over her. He kicks the gun across the room out of her reach and picks her up by the neck.

Tyson handcuffs her right hand to the radiator in the corner of the room and pulls something out of his jacket.

It's a small black box with wires sticking out of it and a button on the side. He sets it on the radiator and it starts to beep. She realizes it's a handmade bomb.

He steps back and says, "You have five minutes." He grabs his sniper and leaves.

She looks helplessly at the black box next to her. She tugs in vain at the handcuffs, hoping that he didn't secure them properly. No luck.

The bomb continues to beep. She now has less than four minutes before it detonates.

She begins to panic, knowing that she is about to die.

She stops and thinks. _What do you have, Kate? Think clearly, what can you use?_ She looks around her. There's absolutely nothing in the room she can use to escape. _There's always something. _She tries kicking the old radiator. It groans but doesn't budge.

The beeping gradually gets faster. Three minutes left.

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. _There's always something._ She doesn't have any bobby pins or anything else small and thin except… her eyes grow wide when she realizes that she still has her badge. There's a pin on the back that she uses to fasten it onto her belt loop.

She quickly pulls it off her jeans, careful not to bend it. She pokes the end of the pin into the keyhole of the handcuffs. She curses herself for never mastering lock picking. Castle had been such a pro at it. He even offered to teach her once but she declined.

She maneuvers the pin inside the lock.

The beeping is now growing louder and faster, pressuring her to hurry.

A bead of sweat runs down the side of her face and she wipes it with her shoulder. One minute to go. She moves the pin further into the hole, desperately listening for the click of the tumbler falling.

_Beep…beep…beep…beep…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP… . ._

She squeezes her eyes closed and braces herself for the blast.

_BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP_

_Click._

She looks at the cuffs in shock, the teeth are open; her wrist now emancipated. She barely makes it out of the room before the bomb explodes.

The entire building shakes and causes debris to fall from the ceiling. She races down the hall as fire and rubble shoots out of the room.

She feels the heat of the blast on her back as she pounds the button for the elevator. It takes an excruciatingly long time for it to come.

She dives inside the lift and repeatedly pushes the ground floor button. When the doors slide shut again, she sags to the floor. She had way too many near death experiences for one day, but she knew she had to protect Martha and Alexis.


	3. Chapter 3

Kate ran out to the street and hailed a cab.

As she climbed into the backseat, she gave the address of Rick's apartment.

She pushed Martha's number on her speed dial.

It rang twice before she picked up. "Katherine, darling, how are you? Are you calling to tell me good news?"

"No, Martha," said Kate. "Where are you?"

"I'm just coming to the apartment now, why? Is something wrong?"

"You have to hide, Martha, he's coming for you," Kate said desperately. "Get Alexis and get somewhere safe, I'm coming home now." She noticed that she called the Castle loft her 'home'.

"Who's coming, dear?" Martha said calmly as she pushed the front door open.

"No, Martha, you can't go in there, he'll be waiting for you-" Kate began before the line went dead.

She swore under her breath as the taxi pulled up in front of the apartment. She sprinted out of the car while the driver yelled at her that she didn't pay.

She pounded on the front door of the loft. "Martha! Martha are you okay?" She pressed her ear to the door.

There were two gunshots and a scream. "The next one's going through your skull," she heard Tyson say.

Kate kicked the door down before realizing that she had a key in her pocket. Martha and Alexis were sitting in separate chairs. They weren't tied up, but Tyson was standing over them with his gun.

"Hey!" she yelled to distract him.

Tyson turned to her in surprise. He fired at her and she fired right back.

While he was distracted, Alexis grabbed Martha and they both headed for cover.

Kate ducked; a glass vase shattering behind her. Bullets flew everywhere as they both dodged out of the way.

In her peripheral vision, she saw Alexis crawling towards Tyson.

She continued to fire off round after round. She crouched behind the couch and stayed there while Tyson shot at her. She came up and fired, missing again, and sat back down.

Then, she heard the sound of glass shattering and something heavy hit the ground.

The gunfire ceased.

She tentatively peered over the couch.

Alexis stood over Tyson's body. The serial killer was collapsed on the ground with broken pottery surrounding his head.

"What did you do?" asked Kate in awe.

Alexis shrugged like it was no big deal. "I smashed Dad's spittoon over his head while he was busy shooting at you."

Kate raised an eyebrow and nudged Tyson with her toe. "Your dad's going to be angry when he finds out you broke his favorite spittoon."

"He'll get over it," said Alexis with a small smile.

"Help me tie him up," said Kate.

"No, no, that's okay, I'm fine, thanks for asking," said Martha, picking herself up from behind the couch.

All three of them taped Tyson to a dining room chair. He had a large bloody gash in his head from where the pottery broke, but other than that, he just looked like he was sleeping. Alexis gagged him with a dish towel and covered his head with a pillow case. Yup, just the usual girl bonding at the Castle household.

* * *

When they made it to the ER, Rick was out of surgery, but not awake yet.

She showed her badge to the nurse who tried to deny her access to his room. "He needs rest, ma'am," said the nurse.

She didn't care. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him sleeping in the bed. She wondered if this was how Rick felt after her shooting two years ago. She never expected to see him alive again. She didn't care that he was asleep, she was just happy to see the line on the heart monitor moving up and down.

She bit her lip to keep from crying. Rushing over to his side, she took his hand and squeezed it, needing to feel his warmth to know that he really was okay.

* * *

Rick awoke with Kate's lips pressed to his. It was a nice way to wake up, he thought. "Mmm," he hummed, opening his eyes.

"Hi," said Kate. She pulled back, but not far. Her forehead rested against his and he got to stare into her eyes. It was the prettiest sight he had ever seen.

He tried sitting up, but felt a stabbing pain in his side.

She pushed him back down again. "Don't," she commanded, putting her hand on his chest. She sat down on the edge of his bed.

He was still drowsy from the drugs, but he forced himself to wake up. "It was 3XK, wasn't it, Kate?"

She bit her lip and nodded. "Yeah, it was."

Rick shook his head in disbelief. "I knew he was still alive. I just knew it."

"Alexis caught him-"

"Alexis?!" he said incredulously. The sudden outburst made him cringe in pain.

"Calm down, you're going to hurt yourself," she said with a chuckle. "Oh, by the way, your apartment is covered in bullet holes and she broke your spittoon," she added quickly. "Why do you have a spittoon?"

He waved this off. "Did you catch him?"

"Of course," she said. "We tied him up, he's back at the loft and the police are probably picking him up now."

"Is Mother okay too?" he asked, running his fingers through his tousled hair.

She tilted her head curiously. "How did you know she was involved?"

He sighed and pushed himself into sitting position despite the pain. "I figured that he'd go after you then Alexis and Mother, since he kills three by three. And you're the three people I care most about," he said quietly.

She put her hands on his shoulder. "She's fine, we're all fine."

Rick rubbed his side. "Getting shot hurts," he said. "I guess I'm in the club now."

She wrinkled her brow. "Club?"

He smiled deviously. "The club, y'know on our team. You and Esposito got shot and now so did I!" he said almost happily.

She broke into a grin. "I guess that's a good way to look at it."

Her phone rang. It was Ryan. "Sorry, I have to take this," she told Rick.

"No probs," he said as she answered. "Put it on speaker."

"Ryan, you're on speaker," she said to him.

"Where did you say you tied Tyson up?" asked Ryan. He was standing in the middle of their apartment with a small team of officers. The room was covered in bullet holes and shattered glass but other than that, there was nothing abnormal about it.

"What do you mean?" she said, beginning to panic. "He's in the middle of the room!"

"No he's not," said Ryan.

"Where are you facing now?" asked Kate impatiently.

"The kitchen," Ryan stated.

"Okay now turn counterclockwise forty-three degrees," Kate instructed.

He obliged, turning the necessary amount.

"Stop, look right ahead of you," said Kate.

"Uh, he's not there, Beckett. There's just a chair," said Ryan.

"How the hell did he get out?" asked Castle.

"I have no idea!" said Kate. "We duct taped him and everything."

"He must have an accomplice," said Ryan.

"Canvas the area for prints," said Beckett. "In the meantime, we need to get Martha and Alexis to safety."

"What about you?" said Castle.

"I'll be fine," she told him.

He gripped her arm. "No, you need to go into hiding too."

She rolled her eyes. "Castle, I can handle myself. I'm not going into hiding."

"You don't know what's right for you, Kate. You're not safe," Rick said. "You're going into hiding until we find Tyson and that's that."

Kate glared at him. "You can't tell me what to do, Castle. This is my life we're talking about."

"It's _our _life, Kate," said Rick. "It's our life now, we're a couple and we do things together. You know that I can't live without you."

"Uh, guys-" said Ryan, still on the line.

"Well, you're going to have to learn to, Rick," said Kate, angry that he was also referring to her job offer in DC.

"I feel like we've had this argument before," said Rick sarcastically, putting a finger to his chin.

"Don't make faces," she snapped. (wink to Firefly fans) "Who said I even _want _that job?"

"How could you not?" asked Rick. "It's an amazing opportunity."

"Are you telling me to take it?" asked Kate.

"I'm not saying you shouldn't!"

"Well you're not saying I should either!"

"I'm not going to tell you what to do, Kate-"

"You just did, you jackass!"

Rick paused and stared at her.

"Hi, still here," Ryan muttered on the phone.

She sighed. "I'm not taking that job because you wouldn't be there. Work would be no fun without you. And I'm not going into hiding either. We're going to catch that son of a bitch, Tyson and lay all of this to rest."

He nodded silently. "Okay."

She smiled. "Good. Because I have a gun and you don't have a choice because you're crippled now."

"I am?!" he said panicking and looking down at his legs.

"No, stupid. You got shot in the _side," _she said, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, right," he murmured.

"I'm glad you worked that out," said Ryan. We've found prints on the chair that aren't Tyson's. CSU is running them right now. Hopefully 3XK's accomplice isn't as hard to find as him."

Esposito took the phone from Ryan. "Hey, Beckett. We just put Martha and Alexis under police guard at the precinct."

"Make sure Gates is there to make sure that the team actually works for us this time," said Castle, remembering the time a pair of guards were sent to escort him to jail when they were really working for Tyson.

"I'm on it, bro," said Javi.

She hung up and minutes later, they had the name of Tyson's accomplice.

* * *

Tyson's accomplice was named Terrance Block of Queens. He was Special Forces in the military, but had been arrested a decade ago for premeditated murder of his wife.

The good news was that he had a cell phone that they traced to an abandoned warehouse on the outside of Albany.

The team also had looked into the phone records and found out that Tyson would be at the warehouse that night to drop off Block's payment.

Beckett sat next to Castle in the hospital bed with a laptop propped in front of them. They both wore headsets with Bluetooth that connected them to the head SWAT team operator that would be running the retrieval mission, General John Manson along with their own team that would be aiding them.

"Can you hear me, Ryan?" said Beckett, taping the mic.

The Bluetooth crackled to life. "I hear you, Becks."

"Don't call me Becks," she snapped.

Ryan chuckled. "Okay, I'm about to connect the wireless feed."

The screen on the laptop was fuzzy, then showed a night vision camera feed that was attached to Ryan's helmet.

"This is so cool," said Castle giddily. "This is like Zero Dark Thirty and I'm Obama."

Beckett glared at him. "First of all, Zero Dark Thirty was not cool and second of all, _I_ would be Obama."

"Focus, people," said General Manson, connecting to the feed.

Castle and Beckett smirked at each other.

"We're going in T minus five minutes," said Manson. The rest of the swat team strapped on their vests and loaded their arms.

Through the helmet cam, they saw Ryan put bullets in his tiny handgun. It looked pathetic and childish compared to the SWAT team's guns.

Esposito nodded to the camera and waved.

Castle waved, despite the fact that it was a one way feed.

Manson checked his watch, counting down from ten. When he reached zero, the team burst out of the van and trekked to the warehouse across the street.

Ryan looked up and they were able to see the SWAT snipers on the adjacent roof as backup.

Beckett and Castle watched as the team moved silently into the building.

Ryan was first into the next room. He scanned the area. "Clear," he said.

"Move, move, move," whispered General Manson. He herded the men into the room.

Beckett checked the GPS tracking Block's cell phone. The dot showed that he was on the third floor in the rear room. It kept moving in strange patterns across the floor.

They went up the stairs as silently as cats. The front man always shining the light into corners and the man bringing up the rear covered the rest of them.

"This is going smoothly," said Castle. He messed with the IV sticking out of the arm.

"Yeah," Beckett muttered. "It's almost too easy."

Castle looked at her. "I know what you mean."

"This setup with 3XK seems too obvious for him. He's so meticulous about every single other detail, why would he slip up like this?" she said, chewing her thumb. "This is a rookie mistake to make; everyone knows that cell phones can be tracked."

Castle covered his microphone so the others couldn't hear them. "Maybe Block isn't as smart as Tyson."

Beckett did the same with her headset. "He wouldn't employ someone like Block if that was the case; he'd just blow his cover."

Castle shrugged. "We know he likes living on the edge."

SWAT was now outside the door where Block should be.

The camera pointed at a closed metal door.

"Ryan," Manson whispered, pointing to the door.

The camera went up and down as Ryan nodded. He wound up and kicked the door off its hinges.

The team poured into the room in two single file lines, sending beams of light around the room.

"Clear."

"Clear."

"Clear."

Beckett checked the tracking dot. "What the hell-?" The GPS dot was moving back and forth right in front of the men, so where was he?

Something black shot across the screen.

"Ryan, what was that?" Beckett asked, pressing the earpiece against her head."

Ryan shone his light across the floor.

A pair of eyes glowed in the night vision.

"To your left, Ryan," said Castle.

"Son of a bitch," Beckett whispered when Ryan's light found the culprit.

It was a black cat with a cell phone taped to its torso. Ryan knelt down and picked it up, examining the phone. As soon as he did, the tracking dot on the screen stopped moving.

"General," Ryan called, holding the cat up for Manson to see.

Castle rubbed his eyes and sighed. "We've been set up."

"Get out of there, now!" Beckett instructed.

Ryan tucked the cat under his arm and motioned for the rest of the team to follow him back out.

That was when the camera feed went black.

Castle tapped the keyboard. "What just happened?"

Beckett adjusted the WiFi signal.

They sat staring at the blank screen, waiting for it to come alive again.

When it did, Beckett's heart stopped. Tyson was holding Ryan's helmet cam at arm's length, pointing it at himself. "Hello, Detective Beckett. Look around me."

He panned the camera in a 360° turn around the room. It was up in flames and in shambles. The SWAT team lay dead on the ground. He had blown up the room.

Tyson grabbed Ryan from the floor and pulled him to his feet. His face was bloody and covered in soot, but he was alive. "If you ever want to see your friend here alive again, you'll meet me here in ten minutes. Come alone or you'll find this guy in the harbor by tomorrow morning." He cut the feed.


	4. Chapter 4

Beckett stood up and put the laptop on the bed. She started pacing the room and biting her nail.

"You're not seriously thinking-" said Castle.

She hushed him. "Castle, I have to. Ryan's like my brother."

"He'll kill you, Kate."

"Don't you think I know that?!" she snapped. "He won't think twice about killing Ryan too."

Castle stared at her, a sad look in his eyes.

She sighed and leaned on the frame of the hospital bed. "Ryan has a wife and a kid on the way. He has something to live for. I have nothing."

Castle's jaw went slack. "You have _me_."

Kate opened her mouth to argue then realized what she had just said. "C'mon, Rick, I didn't mean it like that."

"I know what you meant," he muttered under his breath.

"I'm going there, Rick," she said quietly, sitting down next to him. "I'm going to get Ryan out and I'm going to kill Tyson once and for all."

He chewed his lip and took her hand. "Do what you have to do. I'm trusting you to decide."

She nodded and left.

Tyson was standing outside the warehouse with a gun to Ryan's head.

Ryan was obviously in serious pain. He could barely stand with a burn on the side of his thigh.

Beckett stepped into the lamplight with her gun raised.

"That's far enough," said Tyson, digging the gun into Ryan's temple.

Ryan cried out in pain as the metal touched his cut.

Beckett moved her gun to one hand as she put them both in the air. She slowly dropped to the ground and slid it to Tyson across the pavement. It made a sickening scraping sound as it moved along the rock.

Tyson smiled as he put his boot over the gun.

"We had a deal," said Beckett, standing completely still. She saw a glint of something and she glanced up to her right and then back down at Tyson.

"That's right, we did," said Tyson. He pushed Ryan forward and he fell to the ground in a heap. Then, he raised his own gun and shot Ryan in the leg.

"No!" shouted Beckett.

Ryan screamed in agony and grabbed his leg as blood poured out.

Beckett hurried to him to check how badly he was hurt.

"You shouldn't have come," Ryan whispered. "He's going to kill you."

Beckett winked. "I know," she responded. To Tyson, "We had a _deal._" Her voice cracked.

"I said I wouldn't _kill _him," said Tyson with a smile. He was now towering over them with his gun at her head.

She lashed out, grabbing his arm.

He blindly shot; the bullet grazed her armpit.

She pulled and threw her weight into him, knocking him off his feet.

Before he hit the ground, she slipped his gun out of his hand and into hers.

He lay on his side, staring up at her.

"Just shoot me," said Tyson with a sigh.

Beckett smiled. "I'm not going to shoot you, do you know why?"

He stared at her.

"Because I'm not a murderer like you," she whispered.

There was a gunshot and Tyson dropped to the ground, two bullets in his head.

Ryan held Beckett's gun above him, then his arm went slack and he passed out.

"I wasn't going to let you go in without backup," said Castle defensively when Kate confronted him about the SWAT sniper he had positioned in the warehouse.

"That could have gotten us both killed!" she argued. She, Castle, Jenny, and Esposito were sitting in Ryan's hospital room. He and Castle would be roomies while they both recovered from their gunshot wounds.

"Yeah, but you _didn't_," said Castle with a wave of the hand.

Beckett stared to protest, but Esposito interrupted.

"Guys," he said, "all that matters is that Tyson's dead and everyone's okay."

Ryan groaned.

"For the most part," Esposito corrected himself.

Castle smiled. "We're all in the club now!"

Esposito stared at him. "What club?"

Beckett rolled her eyes. "Castle thinks that there's a getting shot club on our team."

Esposito raised his eyebrow. "Oh, that's right! We've all been shot now!"

"That's a reason to celebrate," Ryan muttered, still groggy from the drugs.

Espo smacked him in the arm. "Don't be such a baby, you got shot in the leg. I think _I _got it the worst."

"No way!" said Castle, "Beckett's was the worst!"

"I think Castle's was the worst by far," said Kate. "Do you realize how painful getting shot in the stomach is?"

"I should know it happened to me!" said Castle. "Yours was worse."

"How do you know?" Beckett challenged, inching closer to his face. "Have you ever gotten shot in the chest?"

"No, but you've never gotten shot in the stomach either," said Castle, leaning forward so they were in each other's faces.

"So none of us know how bad any of our experiences are," said Esposito.

"I think mine was the worst," Ryan murmured. Jenny gave him a sympathetic kiss.

Castle took this opportunity to kiss Kate. When his hands started wandering, Ryan interrupted.

"Gross, get a room," he complained.

Beckett smiled and pulled the fabric curtain around Castle's bed, separating them from the rest of the visitors.

"You guys can't have sex in here!" Ryan shouted.

"Who says we can't?" Castle retorted. "I just got shot, I think I deserve it."

"Keep it quiet then," said Ryan.

Kate sat down in Castle's lap, being careful not to bump his stomach. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "About your question before…"

He frowned. "Oh, right."

"I never gave you an answer."

"Okay."

"I don't think we should get married."

"Oh."

"Not yet," she finished. "But I do want to marry you someday."

He grinned. "Me too. And I do want you to take that job in DC-"

"I told you, I don't want it," she reminded him.

"You shouldn't let me get in the way of your career. But I'm coming with you. I can buy a house down there and we can keep the loft here," he said.

"But your family-"

"-Is fine without me. Alexis is out of the house and she's independent now. Mother will be thrilled to have the loft to herself and we can always visit."

"What if I decide I don't like it? The twelfth is my home, Castle. I can't just pick up and leave."

He shrugged. "It's up to you. I just don't want you to go through life thinking 'what if?'."

She nodded. "I don't know what I want."

[Author's Note: Ugh, I hate this chapter! It feels choppy and awkward and I just don't like it. At this point, I just wanted to end it. If anyone has suggestions, PM me!]


End file.
